An Eye for Beauty
by daielight
Summary: After moving into a new apartment, Freddie Benson meets his eccentric artist neighbour, Samantha Puckett, and he starts to grow up.


_After moving into a new apartment, Freddie Benson meets his eccentric artist neighbour, Samantha Puckett, and he starts to grow up. Quick, two-part story that goes nowhere, but I hope you think it's cute._

_--_

_**Part One:**_

The air is sweltering, and all he can think of is how nice it will be once he can get inside and take a nice, cool shower. Sweat coats his skin and makes his discomfort rise. The moving trucks don't arrive until tomorrow, so he has to wait for a bed. But he can get a towel from somewhere, he decides. There must be a neighbour willing to share.

He makes his way up the front steps and lets himself in the main entranceway door. The lobby is refreshingly cool, and he finds his need for ice water lessened slightly. It does not make his need to clean off any less though, and so he hurries to the elevator and quickly steps inside, hitting the button for his floor after only a moment's delay.

The elevator moves relatively quickly, and he is happy that his new home is in better repair than the old building he had grown up in with his mother. A loud _ding_ sounds as the elevator reaches his floor, and feet move quickly so as to reach his destination.

As he walks briskly down the hallway, a figure appears from the doorway, her arms filled with canvas. It takes some fancy footwork for the two too keep from colliding, but they don't and he is able to continue quickly down the hallway. He forgets to apologize, however, and the dirty look she shoots after him would have been enough to freeze him in his tracks if he were paying more attention.

He finally reaches his apartment to find that he doesn't want to spend a moment longer in his sweaty, dirty clothing, so he just strips down and hops in the shower.

He spends a good half hour in the gentle flow of water, carefully scrubbing ever inch of his body until he feels like a prune. Then he turns off the water and uses one of his extra shirts to dry most of his body off. It feels good to be clean.

Dinner is a quiet affair, and the empty apartment is made larger by his lack of company. After a few moments of silence, he decides that he should go meet his neighbours. So he moves from his uncomfortable seat on the floor and dusts off the back of his jeans.

The apartments around him are empty, so he moves down the hallway a few feet and lifts his hand to knock on a darkly coloured wooden door. The answer takes a few moments, and when it does the young woman who opens the door looks rather annoyed. A sharp bark of 'whadda you want?' sets him back a step, and it takes a few moments to realize that this is the woman who he almost ran down earlier.

He explains how he is new to the building and she just nods. Soon the door has been slammed in his face and he goes back to his room slowly, his pride a little worse for wear.

It takes a few days for him to settle in, and all the while he is running into the young blonde who lives a few doors down. She is rather hostile at first, even after he discovers her weak spot for food and leaves candy bars outside her door. It doesn't take him long to become infatuated with this strange girl.

So he tries to get her to do something with him; his pleas falling on deaf ears until one day she runs across him near the mailboxes and demands that he assist her in her art project. He obliges, and soon she has him in her apartment, sitting at the table as she uses him to reference poses for her artbook.

A routine starts, and he finds his eye for art developing slowly, something that helps him in his videotaping and heightens his interest in photography. She becomes a part of his life, but only ever on the surface and a sort of tentative friendship begins to take root somewhere deeper.

He spends more and more of his time under her orders, and their bond deepens. She begins to ask his opinion on her art, and they spend more and more time side by side.

_**Part Two:**_

The room is dark, only one small candle flickering in the corner, its dim light illuminating a bare wall and a floor consisting of rough wooden boards. Beyond the quivering reach of the candlelight is a small, circular object which reflects the smallest flicker of light. It's angled so that the place where the outer layer of skin was carved off appears to be hovering in midair. A heart stands above the wood in the thick dusk, its glowing form entrancing.

Opposite the corner and wall that hold such artistic imagery are the two silhouettes of a man and a woman. The man stands with his arms crossed and his weight shifted slightly onto his right leg so as to give his hips the slightest of tilts; his focus diverted slightly from the scene carefully laid out before him and onto the young woman standing beside him.

Her long blonde hair is pulled back from her face in a no-nonsense bun, or at least it had been when she'd tied it up that morning before getting to work. Now hair was springing up every which way, and the tight bun that it had begun as had turned itself into a haphazard mess at the nape of her neck. The faintest hint of a smile plays around her features as she feels his attention on her. She knew he wouldn't find the simplicity of the scene as enchanting as she did, but the knowledge didn't seem to bother her.

He watches as the flickering light from the candle dances in her eyes, the scene from the corner that she had worked on perfecting for weeks reflected perfectly in her tranquil gaze. He wishes he could capture this moment for her, as he sees it, just to prove to her he could understand the art that she seemed to see every day. Her head moves slightly and now she is watching him, her eyes still reflecting the faintest glint of candlelight, and a smile dancing across her face.

He finds himself returning the smile, hoping to mirror her look, to show her what he is seeing, unaware that she has been admiring the reflection of the candlelight in his eyes as well.

She startles him out of his task by throwing a question his way. "What do you think?" her voice is soft and curious, nothing like the sharp snap he had grown so used to when she asked his opinion. The smile remains settled into the line of her face.

"Beautiful."

Neither are sure to what he refers, and neither care.

She smiles again, and they focus their attention back onto the candle and glowing heart suspended against a large red apple.


End file.
